Sheer warp knit garment and method for making same

ABSTRACT

Continuous, back-to-back tubular undergarments, having sheer, lockstitched body portions and spaced, reinforced toe, heel, welt, or panty portions, are produced on a double-needle-bar Raschel knitting machine having at least 12 guide bars. The basic body knit is chainstitched wales of one strand, the wales being connected by zigzag stitches of another strand. The chainstitches are converted to a jersey 2-0, 2-4 stitch in the reinforced area so that no guide bar must move more than one needle space to form the garment.

iii States tent [72] inventor George E. Jackson Charleston, W. Va.

[21] Appl. No. 797,987

[22] Filed Feb. 10, 1969 [45] Patented July 6,1971

[73] Assignee Union Carbide Corporation New York, N.Y.

[54] SHEER WARP KNIT GARMENT AND METHOD FOR MAKING SAME 5 Claims, 6Drawing Figs.

[52] US. Cl 66/177, 66/176, 66/195, 66/182 [51] lnLCl P04b9/02 [50]Field of Search .1

' l90--l95,182,176,l75

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,433,279 12/1947 Johnson66/195 3,429,147 2/1969 Perrier OTHER REFERENCES Hudson, J. 0., Hosieryand Pantyhose Developments on Raschel Equipment," KNITTED OUTER TIMES,Vol. 37, No. 49., Novv 25, 1968, Pages 49- 55 Primary Examiner-RonaldFeldbaum Attorney-Pearson & Pearson ABSTRACT: Continuous, back-to-backtubular undergarments, having sheer, lockstitched body portions andspaced, reinforced toe, heel, welt, or parity portions, are produced ona double-needlebar Raschel knitting machine having at least 12 guidebars. The basic body knit is chainstitched wales of one strand, thewales being connected by zigzag stitches of another strand. Thechainstitches are converted to a jersey 2-0, 2-4 stitch in thereinforced area so that no guide bar must move more than one needlespace to form the garment.

PATENTEU JUL-6 I971 sum 1 or 2 mum!!! GUIDE SET OUT FOR PANTY HOSE GUIDEBARS LEG LEG 12 CHA|N \37 o o o o o o o c o c o o o o o o H JERSEY/ 0 oo o o o o o o 0 10 RT. SEL. X 9 zlG-zAG o o o o o o o o c\ o o o o a o oa o o o o o o o o o 8 LFT.SEL. X 33 24 7 INSIDE SEL. X 6 INSIDESEL. X

5 RT. SEL. 32 23 )t 4 ZG.ZAG36 o c o o o \\o o J a o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o 3 LFT. SEL. X 30 2 JERSEY o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o 1CHAIN/37 0 \j o o o o o o o o o o LEFT 3 RIGHT 47 PANTY 46 SELVEDGECENTER SELVEDGE X=CONNECTOR STRANDS 48'49 INVENTOR.

Fig. 2 GEORGE E. JACKSON ATTORNEYS PATENTEU JUL-6 lsn SHEET 2 [IF 2BASIC TUBE STITCH REI NFORCING AREA STITCH INVENTOR. GEORGE E. JACKSONSHEER WARP KNIT GARMENT AND METHOD lFUllk MAKING SAME BACKGROUND OF THEINVENTION In the knitting art, it has long been customary to make flatgoods on warp knitting machines and to make tubular, semifinishedgarments on circular weft knitting machines. Warp knitting, with itsmultiplicity of warp yarns, one to a needle, has proved mostsatisfactory in making flat, power net fabric for cutting intoundergarment patterns. While multiguide-bar, two-needle-bar Raschelmachines can make continuous tubular goods, the adaption of suchmachines to producing sheet stockings, panty hose, or the like, has beengenerally unsuccessful to date.

A two-needle-bar, eightor lO-guide-bar warp knitting machine, isdisclosed in British patents 1,036,246, of Jan. 8, 1963, and 1,069,881of May 24, 1967, the machine being capable of producing tubular,ladderproof, ladies sheer stockings with invisible lateral seamingjoining the two single fabrics made by the machine. Reference is made toan article entitled Hosiery and Panty Hose Developments on llaschelEquipment" in the Nov. 25, 1968 issue of Knitted Outerwear Times,describing the state of the art and the equipment and product of theabove patents.

It is stated in the said article that present developments enable theproduction of string connected, or back-to-back, continuous, warp knittubes on a IO-guide-bar Raschel machine, the leg, or panel, sectionbeing in reverse lock knit, the tube being stitch-shaped, the tubehaving reinforced sections for heel, foot bottom, and toe, and havinganother reinforced section to which a separately knitted welt is laterattached. The reverse lock knit of the panel, or leg, area requiresguide bar movement over two needle spaces, to produce a runproofstocking.

in actual practice, despite the allegations in the said article, it isbelieved that prior to the invention herein, stockings made inaccordance with the article have been made on an eightguide-bar,double-needle-bar machine, and the selvedge has been connectable only bybreaking off two needles at each selvedge. It will be understood thatRaschel needles are formed in a block, and, if one or more needles arebroken from the block, the needle bed can only be used for one productthereafter until the broken blocks are replaced. It is also pointed outthat, when shifts of more than one needle space are made, threeseparately controlled yarn guides are required to make each selvedge.While stockings with only two so] vedges could be made with a l-barmachine, using four bars for the knit and six for the selvedge, pantyhose with its four selvedges would require 16 guide bars, and no suchmachine is presently available.

To make panty hose on a l4-guide-bar machine, it would be necessary tobreak off needles at the outer selvedges, and this is undesirable. Thesaid article thus does not teach the making of sheer, panty hose on thel4-guide-bar Fashionmaster machine mentioned, but simply recounts themany problems encountered including variation in individual and tension,the extensive guide bar swing, tearing of the crotch, etc.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In this invention, the l4-guide-bar,double-needle-bar Fashionmaster" of the Cocker Machine & Foundry Companyof Gastonia, NO, or any other similar machine having at least 12 guidebars, can produce sheer, lockstitch, stockings, or panty hose, with theproblems enumerated in the said article completely overcome. This isaccomplished by avoiding the reverse lock knit, and two-needle-spacemovement taught by the above prior art. Instead, two fine denier strandsare fed to each needle, the set of one such strands are looped back andforth between adjacent wales to tie in the adjacent pillars laterally,the set of the other such strands are chainstitched in the panel, or legareas, and then converted to a jersey 2-(), 2-4 loop structure in thereinforced toe, foot bottom, heel and welt areas, and no guide bar movestwo needle spaces in the knitted structure. In this manner, only sixguide bars are needed to form the panel areas and reinforced areas, andonly six more guide bars are required to make both the inside andoutside selvedges and the crotch of the panty hose.

The stitch shaping and crotch leg formation of the sheer panty hose ofthis invention is accomplished by the mechanism of the Fashionmasterwhich is commercially available and is now used to make fishnet pantyhose, using 12 of the i l guide bars. The gist ofmy invention is theconcept of a different stitch structure in the main body of the pantyhose, and in the reinforced areas, whereby stitch motions of only oneneedle space are required, and the machine can therefore produce sheer,stitch-shaped panty hose, rather than merely fishnet, unreinforced pantyhose.

BRIEF DESGRIPTION OF Til-IE DRAWINGS FIG. ii is a diagrammatic frontview of a Fashionmaster machine showing the pattern means, warp beammeans, warp knitting means, and wind up means;

FIG. 2 is a schematic plan view of a double-needle-bar multiple-guidehariRaschel knitting machine showing the guide bar set out for the sheerpanty hose ofthe invention;

FIG. 3 is an enlarged schematic view of string connected back-to-bacltsheer ladies stockings made in accordance with the invention and laidout flat before being cut and boarded into final stocking shape;

FIG. is a view similar to FIG. El, showing string-connectedstitch-shaped sheer panty hose made in accordance with the invention;

FIG. 5 is an enlarged fragmentary view of the basic panel, or body,stitch; and

FIG. 6 is an enlarged fragmentary view of the reinforced area stitchused in the toe, foot bottom, heel welt or panty areas.

In the drawings, FIG. I. diagrammatically illustrates a typicalmultiple-guide-bar two-needle-bar Raschel warp knitting machine 2i),such as the above mentioned Fashionmaster or any equivalent commerciallyavailable machine having at least 10 guide bars. The machine Ztlincludes: the warp beam means 2]., guide bar means 22, double-needlebars 23 and 24, chaintype pattern means 25 and 2b, and windup roll means27, whereby the machine can have a pattern set up to make warp knittedproducts of various types.

The warp beam means 2?: is arranged to supply two strands 3d and fill,each, for example, of IS denier Cantrece nylon, to each needle 3?; or 33of the opposite pairs of needles on needle bars 23 and M) in eachtransverse zone 341 of the machine 2.43 required to knit a panty widthtubular undergarment 35. This is for the reason that rather than forminga single strand into both a walewise pillar and a zigzag lateralconnector between pillars, in this invention, one set 36 of strandsforms the zigzag lateral connector between w'alewise extending pillars,while the other set 3 7 of strands is forming either chainstitches orreinforcementjersey-type stitches.

The l2 guide bars ill-i2: of the machine are threaded as shown in FIG. 2for making the sheer panty hose of the invention. Guide bars ll, 12, illand 12 are threaded with the strands as, to constitute the other set 37of strands arranged to alternately form chainstitches in the panel, orbasic tube stitch areas dill of the garments or to form jersey knit 2-0,2-4 stitches in the toe area ll, foot bottom area 42, heel area 43, weltarea 44 or panty area 45 .of the garments. As shown, guide bars 5 andill) connect the right outer selvedge 46, guide bars 3 and 3 connect theleft outer selvedge 47, and guide bars 6 and 7 connect the insideselvedges iii and 49 of the leg, or other limb, tubes. The connectorstrands are marked X in the drawing, and form the crotch area M in aknown manner.

In FIG. 5, the basic tube stitch of the invention is shown enlarged,each strand 3% associated with each needle 23 or 24, forming awalewise-extending pillar of runproof, lock chainstitches such as M, 152and 53, and with each strand 31 associated with each needle 23 or 24,forming a zigzag stitch extending laterally back and forth as at 54 and55 between each wale 51, 52 or 53 to tie in the chainstitched pillars.This basic tube stitch presents a sheer stocking panel, lockstitchappearance bearing little resemblance to the fishnet stitch of prior-artpanty hose, or to the two'needle-space stitch taught in theabove-mentioned British patents.

In FIG. 6, the reinforced area stitch of the invention is shownenlarged, this, like the basic stitch requiring no more thanone-needle-space motion by the guide bars and therefore being possibleon a machine 20 of the Fashionmaster type. As shown, the zigzag stitches54 and 55 of strand 31 are unchanged in this area, but thechainstitches, 51, 52, or 53 of the strands 30 have been converted tothe jersey knit 2-0, 24 stitch shown at 56 and 57, so that the strands30 and 31 cross each other in forming a mesh of reduced area suitablefor a toe, heel, welt, or the like.

In FIG. 3, a stocking tube back-to-back is shown with the chain stitches51, 52, 53 extending walewise in the body yarn areas 40 and changing tojersey stitches in the reinforced areas 41, 42 and 43. The zigzagstitches, which are unchanged for the full length and area of thegarment, are shown in stylized form, lighter lines, in view of thedifficulty of showing the actual loop structure accurately on smallscale.

In FIG. 4, a stitch-shaped string-connected back-to-back panty hoseproduct of the invention is shown enlarged over the showing in FIG. 1and with the basic stitch areas designated 40, and the reinforced stitchareas designated 41, 42, 43, 44 and 45 in a manner similar to FIG. 3.

The two guide bars of the i4 guide bars of the Fashionmaster" which arenot required may be used to insert filler yarns for design purposes, ifdesired.

A pattern chain layout by which the guide bars 1-12 are controllablyoperated by pattern chain means 25 and 26 to cause machine 20 to knitthe sheer panty hose product of the invention is set out below. Thelayout is stated as it would be read from the design pages and does nottake into account that actual practice would require some chain links tobe transposed to a higher or lower value due to pushing the guide barsfrom the left side or the right side. Since the left and right.

Front Back Front Back Guide bar 1 20 O2 22 20 00 24 22 Guide bar 4L 2422 20 22 Other drum shift 24 22 20 22 Guide bar 5. ()2 02 00 00 Otherdrum shift 02 02 O0 00 Guide bar fi 02 02 00 00 Other drum shift. 24 2220 22 Guide bar 7.- 22 22 20 20 Other drum 5 22 24 22 20 Guide bar 8. 2222 20 20 Other drum S 22 22 20 20 Guide bar 9. 22 22 22 20 Other drum 522 24 22 20 Guide bar 02 22 2O 00 Other drum shift. 02 02 0O 00 Guidebar 11- 02 22 00 Other drum shift. 20 22 24 00 Guide bar 12--.. 0'2 2220 00 One drum shift 20 22 24 00 drums of the right and left patternmeans 25 or 26 can be reversed, the drums are designated as one" drumand other"drum.

PATTERN CHAIN SET OUT NOTE The upper set of numbers left to right,represents the motions for each guide bar to make the tube.

The lower set of numbers, left to right, represents the motions for eachguide bar to make the panty section when both drums are shifted.

When the one drum is shifted only the heel and toe is formed.

What I claim is:

l. A garment formed of a warp knit tubular body having a predeterminedpattern of spaced basic knit areas and reinforced knit areas,

each said basic knit area comprising a first set of individualcontinuous warp yarns, each chainstitched along its respective wale, anda second set of individual continuous warp yarns, each looped back andforth between two adjacent wales in zigzag configuration to connect thechainstitches therein,

and each said reinforced knit area comprising said first set stitched ina 2-0, 2-4 jersey loop construction instead of said chainstitchconstruction, and superimposed on and interlocked with said second setof zigzag configuration stitches.

2. A hollow tubular warp knit undergarment having elongated limbsections of a basic stitch construction and having a predeterminedpattern of other sections of a reinforced stitch construction, eachstitch of said garment being formed of superposed loops of each of apair of strands, one said strand lapping in a first direction betweenadjacent wales to connect the same, from'one end of said garment to theother, and the other said strand defining a chainstitch in said limbsection but changing from said chainstitch to lapping in a directionopposite to said first direction between adjacent wales in said othersections to reinforce the same while reducing mesh size therein.

3. A warp-knitted, sheer, tubular undergarment having a basic knittedstructure formed by one set of strands chainstitched to form walewisepillars homogeneously all around said tube and another set of strands,each extending back and forth between the wales of said garment to tiein the same, and at least one reinforced area in said basic knittedstructure for serving as a toe, foot bottom, heel, crotch, or welt, saidreinforcement having said chainstitched set of strands each convertedinto ajersey loop structure in said area and knitted in the oppositedirection to said another set of strands. t. A warp-knitted, sheer,tubular undergarment as specified in claim 3, wherein said another setof strands are each of the elastic spandex yp S. A warp-knitted, sheer,tubular undergarment as specified in claim 3, wherein said strands ofsaid one set and said strands of said another set are all of resilient,flexible, elastomeric material.

1. A garment formed of a warp knit tubular body having a predeterminedpattern of spaced basic knit areas and reinforced knit areas, each saidbasic knit area comprising a first set of individual continuous warpyarns, each chainstitched along its respective wale, and a second set ofindividual continuous warp yarns, each looped back and forth between twoadjacent wales in zigzag configuration to connect the chainstitchestherein, and each said reinforced knit area comprising said first setstitched in a 2-0, 2-4 jersey loop construction instead of saidchainstitch construction, and superimposed on and interlocked with saidsecond set of zigzag configuration stitches.
 2. A hollow tubular warpknit undergarment having elongated limb sections of a basic stitchconstruction and having a predetermined pattern of other sections of areinforced stitch construction, each stitch of said garment being formedof superposed loops of each of a pair of strands, one said strandlapping in a first direction between adjacent wales to connect the same,from one end of said garment to the other, and the other said stranddefining a chainstitch in said limb section but changing from saidchainstitch to lapping in a direction opposite to said first directionbetween adjacent wales in said other sections to reinforce the samewhile reducing mesh size therein.
 3. A warp-knitted, sheer, tubularundergarment having a basic knitted structure formed by one set ofstrands chainstitched to form walewise pillars homogeneously all aroundsaid tube and another set of strands, each extending back and forthbetween the wales of said garment to tie in the same, and at least onereinforced area in said basic knitted structure for serving as a toe,foot bottom, heel, crotch, or welt, said reinforcement having saidchainstitched set of strands each converted into a jersey loop structurein said area and knitted in the opposite direction to said another setof strands.
 4. A warp-knitted, sheer, tubular undergarment as specifiedin claim 3, wherein said another set of strands are each of the elasticspandex type.
 5. A warp-knitted, sheer, tubular undergarment asspecified in claim 3, wherein said strands of said one set and saidstrands of said another set are all of resilient, flexible, elastomericmaterial.